Posted on Wednesday, May 14, 2025
Angelo Canty (COE '25) enters commencement on May 9, 2025.
Angelo Canty graduated as spring 2025 valedictorian with a 4.0 grade point average.
“I joined a gang when I was in elementary school,” he said. “All throughout my life I was told you’re not going to live to see 18. You’re not going to live to see 21. You’re either going to be dead or in jail.”
He proved them wrong, beginning his college journey at Benedict College in South Carolina 18 years ago.
“I wouldn’t call it going to college because I never went to class. I was on the yard every day, going to parties and stuff like that. I ended up leaving Benedict with a .2 GPA.”
Already in the U.S. Army Reserves, Canty transitioned to active duty. He was stationed at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. He also did a tour of duty in Iraq from 2010-2011.
A trip to Houston with his wife, a Houston native who started her college journey at TSU before a detour, changed his course.
“She brought me here for a Homecoming and I absolutely loved it. I told her I’m coming to Texas Southern. In 2020 during COVID we moved here, and I enrolled in 2021 in the spring.”
So did his wife. They graduated together.
“It’s been great because we get to motivate each other,” Canty said.
The kinesiology major spent his final semester as a student teacher in Cleveland Independent School District. He’s accepted a position to continue teaching in the district.
“I’m also going to go get my master’s in Educational Administration. So, hopefully one day I can be an Assistant Principal or a principal. I just want to give back to kids because when I was growing up, I didn’t have that father figure. I had one male teacher, Mr. Black, who made a big impact on my life in kindergarten. That made me get out of the Army and say: ‘hey I want to be a teacher.’”
Canty says Texas Southern has helped him achieve his goals, pointing to the faculty and staff who taught him along the way. One who was particularly impactful to him was clinical instructor Chasity Fountain, who teaches Health & Physical Education in the College of Education.
“A lot of students don’t like to take her class because she’s hard and tough on you. It’s in-class tests. If you don’t read your assignments, then she kicks you out of class. So, you have to read. You have to study. That always pushed me to do better because it helped me in my other classes because if I have to study in this class, I have to do the same thing in the other classes.
He says not many people from where he’s from get to the commencement stage, much less as valedictorian.
“I’m a living testimony that it’s not where you started, but it’s where you can go,” he said.
His advice for future Tigers: “Don’t listen to the outside noise. You can do it. If I can do it, so can you. Take it day by day, one step at a time. Every morning when you wake up, wake up with a mindset that I’m going to be better than I was yesterday.”
Category: Students, Faculty & Staff, Alumni, News Media